The tables have turned in a tiny Canadian town, where a local deer has been spotted hopping around in a high-visibility vest—the kind a hunter or a road worker might wear.
Deer are “not predisposed to wearing clothes,” Sgt. Eamonn McArthur of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service observed to CTV News. “I don’t even want to speculate on how that might have happened.”
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A local reporter spotted the deer on Sunday while driving through the approximately 600-person village of McBride in British Columbia. She told CBC News she took two photos as the animal crossed the road, captivated as she was by its unusual attire. The deer was wearing the vest like a human would, its front legs through the arm holes and reflective neon tape shining on its back.
“I did more than a double take, to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing,” Andrea Arnold told The Guardian. When she posted the photos on Facebook, the people clamored to know: “How did it get on the deer and who is responsible? And why would someone do it?“
Another local, Joe Rich, also reported seeing the deer, this time rustling around in the woods. “It’s zipped right up,” he told CBC. And while the deer looks “unbothered” at the moment, he added, “It needs the game warden’s attention because it won’t survive like that.”
While a reflective jacket might help the animal avoid getting hit by a car or shot by a hunter, it’s possible the straps could get caught on a branch or tangled in some underbrush. And as The Guardian notes, it’s also illegal under British Columbia’s Wildlife Act to harass—which is to say, “worry, exhaust, fatigue, annoy, plague, pester, tease or torment”—a wild animal, for example by forcing them to wear people clothes.
But so far, no suspects have emerged. For now, Sgt. McArthur is hoping the garment will simply fall off and is warning people not to try replicating the outfit on other animals.
“Even if you can get close enough to the wildlife to put it in a sweater or a jacket or boots or what have you,” McArthur told CTV News, “we recommend highly against that.” Better to admire from afar.
